a project on the meaning of art’s performativity
with Dorothea von Hantelmann
January-April 2007

This project looked at the artwork – and its presentation and installation in an exhibition – as performative, i.e. as a situation or event. Approaching art works or exhibitions in this way, implies an investigation of the social situation in which art takes place and encounters society. It focuses on the moment of perception and communication, on the exchange with a spectator, a public which is constantly being reconstituted. What does that ephemeral, individual or collective moment of perception of an artwork bring forth? In what way does this moment not only produce the artwork, but also a social relationship? Who participates in this process, and what does participation mean in this context? These are the kind of questions the notion of performativity’ brings forth.

Regardless the fact that performativity has by now become an established term in art and theory discourse, it’s still a slippery and by no means clear-cut notion. Under the premise that this slipperiness is part of the concept (and not its deficiency) and that it in fact can be very precisely named and used, this seminar centered around three questions: What is performativity? What makes it interesting in aesthetic, ethical and political terms? What is the meaning of the performativity of visual art in general and of specific art works in particular?

The project involved join readings of key texts by J.L. Austin, Judith Butler and Jaques Ranciere; discussions of specific artists and artistic approaches, such as James Coleman, Daniel Buren, Jeff Koons or Carsten Höller; and visits to museums and exhibitions to speak about what could be called a “situational aesthetics”.

Kids taking part in Tino Sehgal’s project at the ICA, London, visited by the group in February 2007

Part of the project was an excursion to London, to visit exhibitions by Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Christoph Büchel, Aernout Mik, and Tino Sehgal; as well as a visit to the Allan Kaprow retrospective in Eindhoven and participation in the re-enactment of one of his happenings.

Dorothea von Hantelmann (Germany) is an art historian, writer and curator, based in Berlin. She has been part of the special research project “cultures of the performative” at Berlin’s Free University, and wrote a PhD on the meaning of art’s performativity. She has published extensively on contemporary art and artists and curated various projects and exhibitions in this field, such as I promise it’s political for the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, in 2002. She currently curates a series of projects for the House of World Cultures in Berlin and continues her academic work at the Free University in a research project on “aesthetic experience”.